A chemical mechanical polishing (hereinafter briefly referred to as “CMP”) technique is a flattening technique used in a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device, and requires improvements in, for example, in-plane uniformity and flatness, and also requires productivity improvements such as the increase of throughput and cost reduction.
Recently, not only further miniaturization but also the introduction of new structures has been carried on for higher capacity and lower power consumption. As a result, the following problems have arisen: the increase in area and steps to be flattened makes flattening difficult, and the increase of the thickness of a layer to be polished increases polishing time and thus deteriorates productivity.